Guest Blog: The Importance of Fair Trade to Flowerlink

Making roses beautiful & ethical from seed to bouquet with Fair Trade

This guest blog post comes to us from Natalia Diez, Founder and President of Flowerlink. Flowerlink is a dedicated Fair Trade partner that firlmy believes and supports ethically grown roses. Read on to learn more about how your Fair Trade bouquet can impact the lives of Fair Trade flower workers this Valentine's Day and beyond.

As you read this, someone in the world is enduring hard working conditions. They labor long, back-breaking hours for next to no pay in the hopes of providing a better life for themselves and their family. This is the harsh reality for many workers in the cut flower industry, but it’s a reality that Flowerlink strives to fight against. Nearly 80% of all cut flowers sold in the US come from Africa or Latin America (where you will find our farms in Ecuador). Unfortunately, these are some of the areas where workers are most likely to be exploited to keep costs down, but we know that basic human rights can never be put aside for profits.That's why we choose to work with the Fair Trade Certified flower farm, Florecal. Florecal is a flower farm located 2,850 meters above sea level at the base of the Cayambe volcano - the climate is ideal for growing high-quality roses. For more than 20 years, quality, innovation and service have been at the core of Florecal's mission, as well as providing a work environment where workers can thrive.

For us, the heart of Fair Trade is all about transparency and respect for life. It’s worth advocating and raising awareness for these values in hopes of seeing changes in international trade. That’s why Flowerlink has partnered with many celebrated Fair Trade organizations to ensure that our wholesale roses promote the well-being of our workers as well as environmental sustainability.

Fair Trade USA is a seal that we’re proud to carry on our boxes. This organization audits and certifies transactions between US businesses and foreign suppliers to ensure that workers are paid and treated fairly, the environment is protected, and communities where the products originated receive development funds. Through the use of their Community Development Premiums, Florecal has been able to provide extra benefits to their workers and surrounding communities. For example, flower farm workers democratically voted to use their premiums to create a "virtual" supermarket for employees to purchase household food staples at a low cost. The Flower Label Program (FLP) is another organization and ensures that flowers are produced in a way that takes care of both people and the environment. It’s a joint initiative between trade unions, flower producers, and human right organizations and through them, Flowerlink follows an international code for the safest production of cut flowers. We are also certified by Flor Ecuador which is run by an association of flower producers and exporters in Ecuador and is dedicated to promoting social and environmental responsibility throughout the country.

We know that we have a role to play in protecting the workers and landscape that grow our roses, and we hope that we’re doing our part by providing socially and environmentally conscious wholesale roses to Los Angeles and beyond. Roses should be beautiful for their entire life, from the time they bloom to the time they are cut. We think caring for the people and the environment that helped those roses blossom encourages its beauty from the very beginning

If you’d like to learn more about Flowerlink’s Fair Trade mission or to receive a sample of our world-class roses please contact us at flowerlinkla.com/wp/contact/.